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  • Writer's pictureJulie Collorafi
    • Dec 2, 2021
    • 6 min read

Columbia University Professor Trained Scientists from Major Chinese Hospital To Make BLT Mice

Updated: Feb 15, 2022

Columbia University's Humanized Mice Program

In a previous article, I discussed how Columbia University Professor Megan Sykes

collaborated with Yong-Guang Yang, a scientist from the The First Hospital of Jilin University (国际教育学院), one of China's premier national hospitals, on eighteen NIH-funded studies on BLT mice. Many of the studies used fetal thymus and liver obtained from Advanced Biomedical Resources, Planned Parenthood's organ trafficking partner.


Dr. Megan Sykes is the Director of the Columbia University Department for Translational Immunology which has a Humanized Mice Core program which has "over 25 years of experience developing hu-mouse models with functional human hematopoietic and lymphoid systems . . . we have pioneered novel humanized mouse models with robust, functional human immune systems."


Their mice are called HIS (human immune system) mice and are also known as BLT mice. These mice are currently offered on the Columbia University Research website for COVID-19 vaccine research.


A 2012 study in which Dr. Sykes and her team rolled out the“Personalized Immune” mouse, "a new model for individualized analysis of human immune responses" features an image of cryopreserved and thawed fetal human thymus grafted under the renal capsule of mice.


Image from the study: "NSG mice that were transplanted with cryopreserved and thawed fetal thymus tissue had abundant, viable thymic tissue underneath the kidney capsule."





Chinese Scientists Learned BLT Mouse Technology in the US

A closer look at the authors and affiliations of the following studies published on NIH's website reveals that Dr. Sykes worked with a number of researchers from The First Hospital of Jilin University on the following NIH-funded studies:




(Authors marked with * are from First Hospital of Jilin University.)


"Human fetal thymus and liver tissues of gestational age of 17 to 20 weeks were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource (Alameda, CA). Thymic tissue was cut into small fragments measuring about 1 mm3; human CD34+ fetal liver cells (FLCs) were purified by a magnetic-activated cell sorter (MACS) using anti-human CD34 microbeads (Miltenyi Biotech, Aubum, CA). The prepared human thymic tissue fragments and CD34+ FLCs were then cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen until use." (from the Methods section)



(Authors marked with * are from First Hospital of Jilin University)


"Human FTHY (fetal thymus) and liver tissues of gestational age of 17–21 wk were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource." (from the Methods section)



(Authors marked with * are from First Hospital of Jilin University)


"Human fetal liver and thymus tissues of gestational age of 17–21 weeks were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource." (from the Methods section)


Dr Yang's Studies with Jilin University Scientists

Separately, Dr. Yong-Guang Yang collaborated with Jilin University scientists on the following eight NIH-funded studies involving fetal liver and thymus from aborted babies. It is not clear where all of these studies took place. Some may have been conducted at The First Hospital of Jilin University since the fetal samples were obtained there.)


  • 2014 An effective approach to prevent immune rejection of human ESC-derived allografts (PMCID: PMC4023958)


(Authors with * are from hospitals in China.)


"Human fetal tissues of gestational age of 17-20 weeks were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource (Alameda, CA)." (from the Methods section)



(Authors marked with * are from First Hospital of Jilin University)


"Human fetal thymus and liver tissues of gestational age of 17 to 20 weeks were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource (Alameda, CA)." (from the Methods section)


  • 2017 Complement Depletion Improves Human Red Blood Cell Reconstitution in Immunodeficient Mice (PMCID: PMC5639386)


(All authors are from First Hospital of Jilin University)


"Human blood was obtained from healthy volunteers, and human fetal liver tissues of gestational age of 17–20 weeks were obtained as discarded tissues from the First Hospital of Jilin University." (from the Metholds section)


  • 2017 Antithymocyte globulin treatment at the time of transplantation impairs donor hematopoietic stem cell engraftment (PMCID: PMC5423086



(All authors are from First Hospital of Jilin University.)


"Discarded human fetal tissues with gestational age of 17–20 weeks were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource (Alameda, CA, USA) and the First Hospital of Jilin University." (from the Methods section)


  • 2018 Humanized mice reveal an essential role for human hepatocytes in the development of the liver immune system (PMCID: PMC5986801)


(All authors are from the First Hospital of Jilin University.)


"Discarded human fetal tissues with gestational age of 17–20 weeks and adult human liver samples from patients undergoing partial hepatectomy for primary or secondary tumors were obtained with informed consent at the First Hospital of Jilin University." (from the Methods section)


  • 2018 Modeling anti-CD19 CAR T cell therapy in humanized mice with human immunity and autologous leukemia (PMCID:6354733)


(Authors marked with * are from First Hospital of Jilin University)


"Discarded human fetal thymus (FTHY) and liver tissues of gestational age of 17 to 20 weeks were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource."(from the Methods section)

  • 2019 Long-term survival and differentiation of human thymocytes in human thymus-grafted immunodeficient mice (PMCID:6949514)


(All authors are from First Hospital of Jilin University.)


"Discarded human fetal tissues (thymus and liver; gestational age of 17–20 weeks) were obtained from Advanced Bioscience Resource (CA, USA) or the First Hospital of Jilin University. The thymic tissue was cut into small fragments (approximately 1 mm3 in size), which were used immediately or cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen for later use."


  • 2020 Human Thymic Involution and Aging in Humanized Mice (PMCID: PMC7358581)


(All authors are from First Hospital of Jilin University)


"Discarded human fetal tissues with gestational age of 17 to 20 weeks and human blood samples were obtained with informed consent at the First Hospital of Jilin University." (from the Methods section)



First Hospital of Jilin University's Dubious History

Please note that in the last study above, the fetal tissues were obtained from ABR and from the First Hospital of Jilin University. This is significant because the president of Jilin University has been the subject of a Chinese government investigation for “serious violations of discipline and law.” Jilin University Hospital is listed by ChinaOrganHarvest.org as one of the top ten of 300 kidney transplant hospitals in China and the high number of kidney transplants as well as the very short wait times for available kidneys has raised suspicion.


Dr. Yang Has Been Working for the NIH since 2012

In her highly informative VisionTimes article exploring the close collaboration of Columbia University, the NIH, Megan Sykes and Yong-Guang Yang, entitled, "US National Institute of Health Funded Chinese Scientists Linked to Hospital Accused of Organ Harvesting Atrocities: Reports," author Alina Wang points out that Yang began training Chinese scientists from The First Hospital of Jilin University in 2012:


Utilizing NIH funding in 2012, Yang began training Chinese scientists from The First Hospital of Jilin University at his laboratory in Columbia University, publishing a study in February, 2012.

The study which Alina Wang cites is a February 6, 2012 Nature magazine article explaining the usefulness of the humanized Thy/HSC mouse model as a valuable model for the in vivo study of human immune function.


This article was followed one month later in March, 2012, by the study from Columbia University co-authored by Dr. Yang and Dr. Sykes described above in which they introduced their Personalized Immune mouse to the biomedical community.


NIH and Columbia University Trained Chinese Scientists

It is evident that the NIH and Columbia University have had a long and productive relationship with the Chinese government and have provided valuable US taxpayer-funded training and expertise to Chinese scientists at the Chinese government-owned First Hospital of Jilin University. This training appears to be focused on the production of BLT mice which are engrafted with human fetal thymus and liver from aborted babies.


As shown in my previous articles, the NIH, Columbia University and the Chinese government also have ties to the COVID-19 pan-coronavirus vaccine project at the University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon where hundreds of BLT-L (engrafted with fetal bone marrow, liver, thymus and lung) are currently being made to test vaccines.


It is most significant that BLT mice are the common denominator in the Columbia University's history of collaboration with the Jilin University Hospital's scientists and with the ongoing BLT-L humanized mouse atrocity in Saskatoon.



Diagram of the HIS (human immune system) or BLT mouse from a Nature article on humanized immune system mouse models.



Diagram from a Nature Biotechnology article of the BLT-L mouse developed in 2018 at the University of North Carolina under the direction of Ralph S. Baric. See this article for more information on how it is made.

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